Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller

by Brandon Ellis

  “Come to my quarters immediately.”

  Shaughnessy nodded. “Aye, Mr. President. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

  “I needed you here ten minutes ago. Get here now.”

  Craig hung up and Shaughnessy looked at his shaking hands. He was screwed. Why did Ken have him do this? And, what’s more, why did he agree? His life, once this was found out, was in the balance. Slade would take his life, but if he could fix this, maybe Craig would keep his life intact. He could make it up to Slade later.

  But Jaxx. He did this for Jaxx, not to spite Slade. He’d tell Slade that. They would understand. They always understood that Shaughnessy was for the greater good and they would be empathetic toward him. They had to be. They were human.

  He put on his shoes. “1-1-4-5-1.” The door opened and he headed out into the hall.

  He turned the corner.

  “Hey, Jon.” Slade extended his hand, a half smile crowded his lips.

  “Colonel?” Jon shook Slade’s hand, the Colonel’s grip way too strong to be friendly.

  “Where you going?”

  Jon looked away. “The president’s suite.”

  “I’ve been summoned by the president as well.”

  Shaughnessy’s gut contracted. That was the last thing he wanted. Maybe he could simply crumple and sink to the ground and disappear. “Yes, Sir.” Shaughnessy walked forward, praying Slade would get an emergency call.

  “So, tell me, how did you get the code to my admiral’s quarters?”

  Shaughnessy gulped hard. “Uh, I didn’t, Colonel.”

  Slade stopped, putting his arm out, almost close lining Shaughnessy. He leaned in close to Shaughnessy’s ear. “You gave President Martelle’s secretary the access codes to my quarters. She took my documents.”

  Oh, shit. Shaughnessy’s heart skipped a beat. “What documents, Sir?”

  “Documents that I didn’t want him seeing. Don’t play dumb.” He shoved Shaughnessy against the wall, his warm, minty breath blasted against Shaughnessy’s cheek.

  Slade winked and patted Shaughnessy on the shoulders. “I’m just screwing with you. I think it’s very clever you hacked our rooms.” Slade walked forward. “Follow me.” He laughed. “I did the same thing.”

  “You hacked his room?”

  “Of course. And yours. In fact, I hacked your computer in the central ops office as well. I bugged it, and I have a constant holovid stream watching your room, your computer, your station, and the president’s suite. Not much gets by me, Jon. Not even your conversations with Jaxx while in central ops and the conversation you had with Senator Ken Furr about re-routing the fleet.”

  Shaughnessy halted, digging his feet into the ground. He didn’t know what to say or do. “That wasn’t on purpose. They set me up.”

  Slade gritted his teeth. “You compromised our mission.” He scrunched his hands into a fist, butting his forehead against Shaughnessy’s.

  Shaughnessy’s chinned trembled. He wanted to faint. Jaxx had warned him about Slade. “I can fix it.”

  “Oh, I know you can.” He gripped Shaughnessy by his upper arm and pulled him down the hall.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  Slade seethed, spit coming out of his mouth. “You’re going to give me the coordinates to the portal that Jaxx flew through.”

  Shaughnessy feverishly shook his head. “No.” His eyes darted around as they turned a corner. “I don’t remember the numbers.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “I—”

  Slade stopped and glared at Shaughnessy, baring his teeth like a predator. “Don’t talk.”

  Shaughnessy dipped his head.

  “We’re here.” Slade swiped his card on the control panel next to a door. The door opened. “You first.”

  Shaughnessy walked into a storage room. It was empty. No computer. No supplies. No anything. Just four gray metallic walls with a space-side wall with a large, round loading port for any ships to dock with Starship Atlantis.

  Shaughnessy squirmed. “I don’t understand. I’m in a storage room.”

  The door shut, leaving Shaughnessy in the room by himself. Slade stared at Shaughnessy through the door’s small circular window. He pounded the door with his fists. “What are you doing?” He pushed a button to open the door. Then pressed again and again.

  Nothing.

  “Let me out!”

  Slade smiled, then winked. He pressed a few buttons on the control panel in the hall next to the door, then stared blankly into Shaughnessy’s eyes.

  A hiss filled the room. The airlock initiated, and the docking port shuddered.

  “No, no. Slade, I’ll die.”

  Slade nodded.

  The airlock opened and the air escaped into the vacuum of space, Shaughnessy sucked out with it. He flew like a bat out of hell, watching Starship Atlantis and the Secret Space Program’s fleet move farther away from him and him farther away from it. In seconds, his body went from warm to freezing, his arms waiving wildly, his eyes burning. He took a breath and searing pain entered instead of oxygen. His heart pumped but two more times before it gave out. His vision went dark, then a flash of light consumed his eyes, and his body stiffened.

  26

  Edge of M-Quadrant, Nearing Jupiter - Starship Atlantis

  Slade stood in the doorway, arms crossed, bubble gum in his mouth. “Were you expecting someone else to be with me?”

  Craig looked up from his desk while turning another page of the top-secret report on Kaden Jaxx. “As a matter of fact, I also summoned Jon Shaughnessy. Where is he?”

  Slade lowered his eyes. “He’ll no longer be meeting with you tonight...or ever.”

  Craig knew what he meant and looked around for any hidden cameras or secretly placed audio devices. Slade was truly a whack-job but you keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. He liked the guy’s ideas, not the guy’s morality. He had to play it cool. But he was the president. No one screwed with that high of a ranking. Not even Slade. Playing it cool would suffice. “So, how long have you bugged my room?”

  “I’ve bugged all the important official’s rooms.”

  “We’re all important.”

  “Some more so than others.”

  “Right now, I don’t care. We have a mutiny on our hands. What troops are on our side and what troops aren’t?”

  “We’ve got most of Deck 5 and some of Deck 7’s. I’ll convince the Fleet Admiral to bring his Space Marines, and I’ve contacted Kajka Okbak. They sent a special troop envoy. They’re here now, docked in the storage bays on Deck 6. I had to get them a special SSP signature so they’d seem like another SSP transport ship coming from another quadrant. It worked.”

  Craig put his hands together. Slade was pulling on his last nerve. “Why didn’t you tell me about Jaxx?”

  “I did.”

  “You told me he was the key to opening up those alien pyramid power plants. You didn’t tell me he was alien himself.” Craig caught Loraine catching a glimpse of the conversation from the outside room. “Slade, step inside.”

  Slade did and the door shut behind him.

  “The last thing you need right now are more distractions, Mr. President.”

  “Now, when you don’t tell me things, it becomes a distraction.” Craig flipped through some more pages. “According to this here document, Jaxx wasn’t born on our planet.”

  Slade nodded. “Of course not. A man with those extraordinary powers has a different, more open DNA sequence than us. But we’re learning that can be changed and our DNA can open up just like theirs can.”

  “Another secret, Slade.” It was a statement, not a question. He looked at the document, a document leaked to him by Shaughnessy via Craig’s secretary, Loraine. “It says here that you were there when these Beings from an undisclosed location within our solar system landed and gifted you Jaxx when he was a baby. You then adopted him out? Why the hell would you do that?”

  Slade cracked a smile. “If you only knew
. He was given to my brother. I was able to keep track of the boy the majority of his life. Then, we took him against his will and trained him in the art of combat—starfighter piloting, hand-to-hand fighting, and weapons special ops shit. That’s how we do things in the Secret Space Program. We take. We don’t ask. In return, we make people better, more disciplined, noble, loyal to the United States of America.”

  “I see.” Craig looked at the document on his desk. “You knew about the Atlanteans on Callisto this entire time?”

  “No. We found that recently. We’ve been trying to locate where these Beings came from for decades. We were surprised we hadn’t found them sooner than we did. Turns out they were on Callisto this whole time. I don’t know how that escaped us.”

  Craig flipped another page. “And he showed incredible skills during starfighter combat, but was more or less lacking during flight training?”

  Slade leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the document. “It says all of that in there? I’ve never actually looked at it.” He scratched his chin.

  “He was able to figure out the pyramids so quickly and read their writings at incredible speeds, understanding exactly what they meant because he was Atlantean?” asked Craig.

  Slade winked. “You catch on quickly.” He spit on the floor and rubbed his boot in it. He took out a folded piece of paper and dropped it on Craig’s desk.

  “What’s this?” questioned Craig.

  “Read it.”

  Craig opened it, resting his temple against his hand. He pushed off his desk and crumpled the piece of paper and threw it at Slade. “Not a chance.”

  Slade picked up the paper and unwrapped it. “Sign it.” He slammed it back on the desk, leaving his hand on the upper portion, pinning it to the desktop.

  “You’re asking me to give up my position as president so you can be the president on Callisto?”

  Slade eyed him intently. “Yes. This is for technical reasons. The Kelhoon want me in charge. They like my style.”

  “No president would do that.”

  “I want you there with me, Mr. President. I don’t want to have to tell them that you’re not on board. They need the signature. They need proof you’re going to do what I’m asking. You don’t do this, then I don’t know what they’ll do to you or your daughters.”

  Craig let out an angry laugh. “You’re threatening me? You’re crazy. I’m not signing a thing.”

  “You must.” Slade gestured to Craig’s computer. “Turn it on.”

  “Wha—”

  Slade pulled out his pistol. “Turn it on!”

  Craig turned it on and a holoscreen folded open above his desk, materializing.

  “Go to our spacenet and open the email I sent to you, titled, I have your wife and kids.”

  Craig’s eyes went wide. “No. What did you do?”

  “Open it up and you’ll see.”

  Craig’s hands shook as he opened the spacenet and then his email.

  “Press on the video,” ordered Slade.

  Craig did and his wife, bound and gagged, hands tied behind her back, was sitting on a bed, her two young daughters next to her, both crying, also bound and gagged. On video, Slade walked into camera view and pressed a gun against Craig’s wife’s head. Although all bullets on the ship were rubber to not poke holes through the ship’s walls, they were still deadly.

  Slade pulled the trigger.

  “No!”

  “If you don’t sign those papers, your daughters are next.”

  Slade walked to the door and watched it slide open.

  Craig dropped his head in his hands, sobbing, his shoulders shaking, whispering, “This isn’t happening...this...isn’t...happening.”

  Slade stepped through the doorway. “Sign the papers, Mr. President.”

  27

  North of Flood of Dawn, Callisto - J-Quadrant, Solar System

  Rivkah looked over the war field, lit by several of Jupiter’s pale moons glowing on the Kelhoon encampment.

  Her palms were singeing with heat, her adrenaline nearly jumping through the atmosphere. She glanced at her hands. They were trembling, not out of fear, but energy.

  The Kelhoon were falling over themselves, rushing this way and that way, grabbing weapons, jumping on turrets and rotating them into firing position.

  A grenade lobbed from over a temporary encampment wall, hurtled toward Rivkah. She thrust her hands out, directing Chi at the grenade. It blew apart and a cloud of purplish-blue erupted just above. Shards bombarded a Kelhoon tank gunner, throwing him off the tank. Knocked out cold, green blood oozed from his leg.

  Rivkah stared at her palms. “What?” The energy flowing through her wasn’t only powerful, it was ridiculous.

  She curled her hands into fists and ran toward the wall, where Atlanteans and Kelhoon were in hand to hand combat.

  Up ahead, a Kelhoon ducked an Atlantean punch and grabbed the Atlantean’s legs, swiping his feet out from under him. The Atlantean landed on his back. The Kelhoon pulled out a dagger and raised his arm for an ending stab.

  Rivkah aimed her hands in the Kelhoon’s direction and a heat rose in her shoulders and pumped down to her fingertips. She screamed bloody murder as emotions from her childhood surface like a slide show. An image of her mother, dead, in her backyard, her dad the suspect, but never charged. Bobby the bully with a punch to her stomach on the playground and she cried while her dad shook his head and ridiculed her pain. “You’re a wimp,” he said. More and more of her father blinked in and out. Her hands vibrated.

  “Dad, get out of my mind,” she yelled as she thrust her hands at the Kelhoon.

  The Kelhoon lifted off his feet. He spun around, swiping at air. Rivkah dropped her arms and the Kelhoon went down fast, bouncing off the ground. The Atlantean ended the beast quickly.

  Rivkah rushed toward another Kelhoon having his way with several Atlanteans. She pushed the energy through her hands, targeting the Kelhoon’s legs. Her body burst into sweat and her legs wobble for a moment as the Kelhoon was thrown face first onto the ground.

  He twirled around just as an Atlantean landed a foot on his chest, pinning the Kelhoon. The Atlantean pointed his trident. The three-pronged weapon sizzled as blasts exited the pointed barrels. The Kelhoon twitched twice before it lay motionless.

  “Stop fighting, Rivkah,” came Bogle’s voice inside Rivkah’s head. “Retrieve Fox and we’ll be on our way. We have no way of winning this battle, let alone this war. We’re a distraction for you.”

  “Nice of you telling me the game plan now.” Rivkah dropped her arms by her side, her face twisted in a scowl.

  “Stop experimenting with Chi and get Fox.”

  A Kelhoon starfighter lifted into the air from behind the encampment’s walls.

  “Get going, Rivkah. We don’t have time for you to play around with your gifts. Go!”

  She shook her head and dashed forward, getting closer and closer to the Kelhoon encampment.

  The starfighter flew forward, passing directly overhead. Cannons on its wings twisted as it strafed the battlefield. Atlantean yells and screams accompanied their spilt blood.

  Rivkah reached for her blaster. “Dammit, Fox.” He had taken her gun and her continued reaches for it only slowed her down. “Fox, you got yourself up and captured. Now, I’m having to save your ass?”

  Up ahead was the encampment’s metallic wall. She zeroed in on a portion of it, the energy rising up her spine and to her brain. She pushed the Chi outward. Emotions accompanied with images of her father slapping her across her face, telling her how useless she was, seeped to the surface and she yelled loud and hard. It only strengthened her and she ran faster. “Watch this, Dad. I’d like to see you attempt this.”

  She took another step and leaped over the wall and without stopping, advanced when her feet hit the ground on the other side. Kelhoons were scattering, taking orders, jumping into hover-vehicles. They didn’t notice her. “Last one dead is a rotten egg.” A drip of blood fell fro
m her lip. She wiped it away.

  A Kelhoon loading an energy pack into his weapon glanced up at her words. He cocked his head to the side, then widened his eyes. He backpeddled. She watched as he realized what she was—a young, beautiful, healthy woman. His expression transformed and murder filled his eyes. Or was that hunger? To him, she was no longer the predator. She was the prey. The feast.

  “I ain’t your food, lizard-face.” Rivkah raced in his direction and the Kelhoon ran toward her. He pulled the trigger.

  She side stepped as the charge zipped by. She slid and barreled into him. Wrapping her legs around one of his, she twisted and snapped his knee.

  “Kajanka!” he yelled, rolling forward in pain, grasping at his new injury.

  Rivkah grabbed his weapon and stuck two shots into his temple. She hopped to her feet and sprinted left, just as a dozen razor sharp slugs rained on her position.

  “Where am I going, Bogle?”

  “Follow Fox’s trail. You’ll sense it.”

  A gang of Kelhoon rushed her. One dropped to a knee and placed a heavy pulse cannon on his shoulder. He adjusted the scope and fired.

  Whooshka!

  The cannon vibrated and a ball of electricity expelled. Jumping to the side, she rolled and the ball slammed into a Kelhoon tank. It lifted off its sleds and bounded into the air, crashing back down. Fire erupted at its base.

  Rivkah hustled in the opposite direction and pumped Chi into her legs. They heated up with every step, pushing her farther from the oncoming Kelhoon soldiers and toward dozens of one to two story buildings.

  She darted in between a make-shift alleyway with several large buildings on either side butted up against the eastern wall.

  Pumping hard, breathing heavy, she skid to a stop and leaned against the wall to assess the situation. She curled around a building and crouched in a shadow.

  A hand covered her mouth and an arm wrapped around her hips and brought her to her feet. She was pulled backward. She dug the edge of her boot heels into the ground. She flailed her arms and swung them in an attempt to wrestle free. But whoever had a hold of her was strong, and somehow had the power as well.